The Bears played their final game of the regular season on Saturday, April 20th at the GIANT Center and hosted the Charlotte Checkers. It had been the second game straight against the Checkers, the previous game was a 4-3 victory for Hershey on Wednesday. However, they took a 4-1 loss to wrap up the regular season. Joe Snively scored the lone goal for the Bears for his 14th goal of the season before the Calder Cup Playoffs. Although the game hadn’t been in Hershey’s favor, the Bears finished with a .771 points percentage, which is marked the best in the franchise’s 86-season history.
2023-2024 Team Award Winners
Jake Massie – AHL Man of The Year Nominee
Vincent Iorio – John Travers/Steve Summers Award
Pierrick Dube – Kenny Smith Memorial Award
Jimmy Huntington – Arlene Tighe Award
Henrik Rybinski – Dan Sernoffsky Memorial Coaches Award
Chase Priskie – Milton Garland Award
Clay Stevenson – Jack Gingrich Award
Hunter Shepard – Mountz Team Most Valuable Player Award
Checkers lineup against the Bears:
Morrison – True – Mayhew
Skoog – Asplund – Samoskevich
Khodorenko – Sourdif – Lockwood
Giles – Brind’Amour – Dalpe
Vande Sompel – Fitzgerald
Kiersted – Kinnunen
Benning – Welinski
Knight
Black
Bears lineup against the Checkers:
Limoges – Vecchione – Frank
Snively – Huntington – Dube
Roe – Rybinski – Trineyev
Hofer – Sutter – Strome
Ness – Day
Haman Aktell – Priskie
Massie – Osipov
Shepard
Stevenson
Mackie Samoskevich got things started for Charlotte with a smooth two-on-one play with Rasmus Asplund at 15:18 of the first period. Just less than a minute later, Will Lockwood added to the Checkers’ lead to make it 2-0 after he had been quickly fed by Justin Sourdif, hammering it home. Through the opening 20 minutes, the Bears were outshot 16-7. In the middle frame, the score remained the same as Hershey continued to stay behind.
In the third, the score stayed at 2-0 for most of the remainder of the game thanks to Hunter Shepard to keep Hershey in it. Later into the final frame, Joe Snively scored to at least avoid a shutout with 1:19 on the clock on a slapshot from the point. Both Logan Day and Alex Limoges had the assists. However, Charlotte struck two more times to wrap it up for a 4-1 final… Alexander True and Zac Dalpe both scored with very little time left to secure a victory.
Notes:
– Going into this game, the Bears entered with a 12-2-0-1 record in their last 15 games.
– Aaron Ness skated in his 800th pro game.
– This season marks the first regular season in franchise history where the Bears had never lost back-to-back games in regulation.
– The Bears are the first in the AHL with a penalty kill that’s gone 234-for-267 (87.6%)
– This season, six individual players combined 10 shorthanded goals, which is tied with the 2021-2022 team for the highest by a Bears team since the 2011-2012 team had buried 13 shorthanded goals.
– Hershey has a league-leading 40 wins when scoring first… Against the Atlantic Division opponents this season, the Bears are 38-10-0-3.
– The Bears have the lowest average penalty minutes in the Eastern Conference per game… 9.37 penalty minutes per game.
– (Before this game) Joe Snively had a six-game point streak (nine points; two goals, seven assists), tying for 15th in the league scoring with a total of 58 points (13 goals, 45 assists), and his assists are tied for fifth.
– The Charlotte Checkers won three of their last five with the Bears and ended the season series with a head-to-head 3-5-0-0 record.
– Charlotte has also not lost more than two straight games since January.
– Mackie Samoskevich extended his point streak to six games (nine points; four goals, five assists).
– In his last five starts, Spencer Knight has allowed one or fewer goals.
